Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck
Speaker 2: and Jerry's here too, and we're just hanging out in
Speaker 2: the South here on Stuff you Should Know. Yep, that's right.
Speaker 3: And today everybody, we're gonna be talking about something I've
Speaker 3: wanted to do an episode on for a little while,
Speaker 3: but I forgot about it.
Speaker 4: But now keeping a better list.
Speaker 3: And this was farmed out to Dave Ruz who helped
Speaker 3: us with this one about kudzoo, which if you're from
Speaker 3: the United States, you probably know what it is. If
Speaker 3: you're from the American South, you definitely know what it is.
Speaker 4: But if you don't.
Speaker 3: It is a perennial vine that very much thrives in
Speaker 3: the American South and it is known as the vine
Speaker 3: that ate the South because it is an invasive plant
Speaker 3: from Japan that has really, really, really thrived in the
Speaker 3: American South.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's taken on monstrous proportions as far as legend
Speaker 2: and rumor and just how people walking around the South
Speaker 2: generally think about and talk about kudzuo. Yeah, it's become
Speaker 2: kind of a part of Southern identity. Better for worse.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we'll get into it because recent scholarship has
Speaker 2: found scholarship on kudzu who'ld have thought has found like
Speaker 2: we actually don't think kudzoo's nearly as prevalent as you
Speaker 2: guys say. Yeah, and yeah, the South is just kind
Speaker 2: of ignoring that stuff for now, Yeah, because it's ours. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but originally, like you said, it was Japan's and China's
Speaker 2: I think it was. Actually it's native to China, and
Speaker 2: it's scientific name is phou Aria montana, which makes it
Speaker 2: really confusing because it's not from Montana.
Speaker 4: Neither is Hannah.
Speaker 2: No, turns out she's from Tennessee.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: It is a part of the boy I always forget
Speaker 3: and someone always tells us when it ends in ce
Speaker 3: A E, what is it, say F A B A
Speaker 3: C E A E family, which means it's a legome,
Speaker 3: just like a pea or a soybean. They are all
Speaker 3: nitrogen fixers, which we're going to get to in a
Speaker 3: little bit. But it's it's a good thing that it's
Speaker 3: a nitrogen fixer because it helps soil fertility and it's
Speaker 3: the kind of thing that can grow in the peak
Speaker 3: of summer when things are really hot and humid and
Speaker 3: rainy and steamy. I can grow a foot a day,
Speaker 3: is what you usually hear. And I think that's probably
Speaker 3: confirmed or about you know, forty to sixty feet through
Speaker 3: a growing season, and because southern winters are not so harsh,
Speaker 3: they almost you know, if you're a mature kadsoo vine,
Speaker 3: you're going to live through that winter and just keep
Speaker 3: on growing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and grow and grow and grow. And the way
Speaker 2: that they grow, they have hairs on them like poison
Speaker 2: ivy does, but it doesn't help them climb. Instead, the
Speaker 2: very ends, the very tippy tops of the kudzu vine
Speaker 2: is like long and thin tendrils, and it will wrap
Speaker 2: those tendrils around anything it can possibly get its hands on.
Speaker 2: It loves fences, It loves guy wires that hold up
Speaker 2: telephone poles. Yeah, it loves tree limbs. Anything that it
Speaker 2: can use to support itself, it will and it just
Speaker 2: eventually overwhelms and takes over whatever it's attaching itself to,
Speaker 2: whether it's a barn, whether it's some poor unfortunate tree
Speaker 2: who's like, what did I do? It just spreads and
Speaker 2: covers everything. And that's one of the reasons. The way
Speaker 2: that it grows is one of the reasons why the
Speaker 2: South is just like see kudzuo. It's everywhere. It just
Speaker 2: takes over. It's gonna kill us all one day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, can't even see that billboard anymore.
Speaker 2: Nope, which is a shame because if you can't see
Speaker 2: a billboard, how is life forth living?
Speaker 4: I know?
Speaker 3: All right, So if you wonder, oh yeah, but what
Speaker 3: about this nasty eroded soil that's just like barren.
Speaker 4: Nothing can grow there. Cuds you can grow there.
Speaker 2: You're wondering that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the reason cuds you can grow there are
Speaker 3: One of the reasons is not because it just climbs
Speaker 3: so fast and grows so fast, but it has an
Speaker 3: energy store via this humongous tap root. A mature kudzu
Speaker 3: root can be like twelve feet long and weigh four
Speaker 3: hundred pounds. And these things are underground. Just it's almost
Speaker 3: like the engine like lying beneath this vine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or the gas tank even I guess sure, all right,
Speaker 2: one of the two, maybe both, maybe a gas tank
Speaker 2: engine in one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, though in a catalytic converter in your business.
Speaker 2: So one of the things about kudzou vines one of
Speaker 2: the reasons they're so stable as far as once they
Speaker 2: start growing they're hard to get rid of is because
Speaker 2: every once while, I think every foot or so, when
Speaker 2: the vine touches the ground, it sends out roots and
Speaker 2: it establishes what are called root crowns, and that's where
Speaker 2: it eventually grows from. Once the new root crown is established,
Speaker 2: it starts sending out more vines and more and more
Speaker 2: and more. And when you have all these root crowns
Speaker 2: sending out vines, they become tangled. They get tangled. Matt, Yeah,
Speaker 2: a thicket of kudzu vines that can be meters deep, essentially,
Speaker 2: like you could get lost in one of these things.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Have you ever tried to get rid of kudzu
Speaker 4: for any reason.
Speaker 2: Not kudzu but other pernicious vines? Yes, yes, right, never
Speaker 2: tried my hand at kutsu sounds hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard, but you know, I think any pernicious
Speaker 3: vine is pretty tough.
Speaker 4: So sure you probably know what it tastes like, you know,
Speaker 4: but not literally.
Speaker 3: Although what a time to talk about that, because if
Speaker 3: you want to go back to kudzu's roots in China,
Speaker 3: literal roots did not even mean that it has been
Speaker 3: a part of Chinese traditional Chinese medicine for a couple
Speaker 3: of thousand years. They call it co or koshu, and
Speaker 3: that root they make root tea out of it. And
Speaker 3: in Japan they eat this stuff like not only has
Speaker 3: it been used for medicine, but that root powder that
Speaker 3: they can make is used in a lot of different
Speaker 3: foods in Japan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a thickener. So if you've had mochi, it's
Speaker 2: possible that they use kudzu powder kudzu starch to make
Speaker 2: make it the thick little delicious treat it is, or
Speaker 2: they'll use it to make noodles with. It's also used
Speaker 2: in traditional Japanese and Chinese medicine. They'll use tea for
Speaker 2: things like colds and digestion. And then also because there's
Speaker 2: actual like health benefits or at least it contains flavonoids
Speaker 2: that have been shown to have health benefits, they use
Speaker 2: it for things like inflammation, cardiovas, vascular disease, osteoporosis to
Speaker 2: protect against those things, not to cure them or anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and while I mentioned that it's koshu and China,
Speaker 3: it is kuzu in Japan.
Speaker 4: And you might have heard various stories.
Speaker 3: If you're in the South, you know there's It's not
Speaker 3: like we're sitting around talking abou kudzu all the time.
Speaker 4: That's a bit of an outdated trope.
Speaker 3: But at some point, if you, like literally were raised
Speaker 3: in here and lived here your whole life, you might
Speaker 3: have heard someone at some point say something about like
Speaker 3: how cuds you got here? And I remember hearing a
Speaker 3: story that it was brought over as part of a
Speaker 3: like a World's fair or something, and it had to
Speaker 3: have been this story from eighteen seventy six when it
Speaker 3: was brought over from Japan on display at the Philadelphia
Speaker 3: Centennial Exposition. But that is a bit of a false
Speaker 3: rumor because they actually destroyed all of those plants, and
Speaker 3: that's not when kudzu literally took root here.
Speaker 2: No, And then within a few decades the people who
Speaker 2: were at that exposition and saw apparently fell in love
Speaker 2: with it. Kudzu display was a huge hit, and so
Speaker 2: within a couple decades you could order seeds kudzu seeds
Speaker 2: to plant at your house. And now, yeah, and people
Speaker 2: would plant it as an ornamental vine because it has
Speaker 2: purple flowers. They smell it smells like grape candy and lavender.
Speaker 2: It can be pretty I could see how old timey
Speaker 2: turn of the century people were like, this is great.
Speaker 2: But even then with people planning the stuff at their
Speaker 2: houses across the South, that still wasn't when kudzu invaded,
Speaker 2: because they were mostly growing it upright on trellises on porches,
Speaker 2: and kudzu is easily controlled in that situation. It's when
Speaker 2: it's on the ground as a groundcover that it spreads
Speaker 2: like crazy and it is really hard to get rid of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, when it really came in earnest was
Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirties, and it was very much purposeful.
Speaker 4: This was the time when the.
Speaker 3: I guess Oklahoma and Kansas and you know, other areas
Speaker 3: nearby were being killed by the dust Bowl. In the
Speaker 3: Deep South, we didn't have the dust Bowl, but we
Speaker 3: had a pretty bad agricultural scene after decades and decades
Speaker 3: of monoculture farming with corn basically tobacco and cotton. And
Speaker 3: so we've talked about monocultures before and how that's not
Speaker 3: the best way to take care of your land. And
Speaker 3: eventually that soil is not going to be great. It's
Speaker 3: going to erode, it is going to be depleted of nutrients,
Speaker 3: and Kudzoo was looked at by the Soil Erosion Surface
Speaker 3: Service Surface Service, which later became the Soil Conservation Service
Speaker 3: as the answer in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because so, first of all, it grows vigorously. Everybody
Speaker 2: knows that about kudzoo, and it doesn't matter how terrible
Speaker 2: the soil is, it will grow in it. And then
Speaker 2: as it's growing in it, you said that it's a
Speaker 2: nitrogen fixing superstar, and it is nitrogen fixing plant. All
Speaker 2: plants fix nitrogen. They bring sugars to their roots, they
Speaker 2: feed microbes that eat the sugars, and then the microbes
Speaker 2: convert nitrogen from the atmosphere into usable nitrogen that the
Speaker 2: plants then take up. So all plants have that relationship
Speaker 2: with microbes. It's just nitrogen fixing. Plants are such powerhouses
Speaker 2: and have such thriving microbial communities that they put out
Speaker 2: way more nitrogen into the soil than they use themselves.
Speaker 2: So as they grow, they restore the soil with nutrients
Speaker 2: that have been depleted. And that's what kudzu was initially
Speaker 2: used for.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so they're like, hey, this is great, it'll slow
Speaker 4: your erosion. You're going to fix that soil so good,
Speaker 4: it's gonna get fixed up. And they said, here's what
Speaker 4: we're gonna do.
Speaker 3: We're gonna create a government program because those always work
Speaker 3: out great, and we're gonna encourage people to grow these things.
Speaker 3: They had millions of kadzu seeds brought in and they
Speaker 3: grew those into little seedling plants, and they paid farmers
Speaker 3: in the South eight bucks an acre to plant kudzoo,
Speaker 3: and by the mid nineteen forties there were about three
Speaker 3: million acres of purposefully planted kud zoo growing on southern farms.
Speaker 3: That's on the farms. You also had the Civilian Conservation Corps,
Speaker 3: which was an FDR program with a new deal. When
Speaker 3: we talked about it before, when they were like, hey,
Speaker 3: if you're unemployed, come work for the Civilian Conservation Corps,
Speaker 3: and you know, we'll put you to work doing things
Speaker 3: like this, like hey, just go plant an anywhere along
Speaker 3: the roadway where you see a washed out gully, or
Speaker 3: if we're clearing out land for roadways and it's just
Speaker 3: a barren, dirty mess, like plant this kudzoo and you'll
Speaker 3: be doing America a favor.
Speaker 2: Same with the railroads, Like, you don't want your the
Speaker 2: bed that your railroad's built on to wash out. So
Speaker 2: if you plant kudzu on every side, it'll keep it
Speaker 2: from eroading. Plus it looks prettier than a bunch of gravel. Right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, this stuff started getting planted everywhere. And in
Speaker 2: addition to the government saying you guys want to plant this,
Speaker 2: go ahead, we'll pay you. There were some evangelists. Evangelists
Speaker 2: is like the best word to describe them. And one,
Speaker 2: the guy who's probably most prominently cited as a kadzoo
Speaker 2: evangelist is a guy named Channing Cope.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we should take a break and Cliff haanging
Speaker 4: that one.
Speaker 2: I'll hang it.
Speaker 3: Everyone who the heck is Channing Coke gotta know, I
Speaker 3: gotta know, guys, you're gonna have to wait, all right,
Speaker 3: we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck.
Speaker 1: I want to learn a thing or two from Joshuck.
Speaker 1: It's stuff you should know, all.
Speaker 2: Right, So, Chuck, you really messed with everyone's mind. I'm
Speaker 2: going to fulfill their wishes and tell them that Channing
Speaker 2: Cope was a farm editor for the Atlantic Constitution newspaper
Speaker 2: farm editor.
Speaker 4: What's that?
Speaker 2: So it was a guy who would edit farms and
Speaker 2: then the paper would take pictures of him editing the
Speaker 2: farm and they would publish it. That was, from what
Speaker 2: I understand, what the farm editor did back in newspaper times.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and this is the nineteen forties. And this
Speaker 2: guy was a really from what I could tell, I
Speaker 2: didn't do any deep research on him, but he seems
Speaker 2: to have been a very, at least outwardly likable fellow.
Speaker 4: Yeh.
Speaker 2: He had a huge jovial personality. He was super homespun.
Speaker 2: He had a radio show in addition to his column,
Speaker 2: Channing Cope's Almanac, and it was really popular. He would
Speaker 2: just riff. He broadcasts live from his front porch and
Speaker 2: it was unprepared and he would fill a half hour
Speaker 2: an hour just talking about farm stuff and people loved it.
Speaker 2: But in these in his column and on the radio show,
Speaker 2: he would invariably talk about how amazing Kudzu was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said that, and reform. We need some reform
Speaker 4: in our government.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So he's doing this radio show, he's beaten the drum
Speaker 3: for Kudzu, basically saying everything that we've been saying, which
Speaker 3: is like, hey, it's going to rebuild your soil. Your
Speaker 3: cattle can graze on it. You just rotate that cattle
Speaker 3: around your fields and they're going to be so full
Speaker 3: from kudzu and so happy, and that kudzu is going
Speaker 3: to grow back so fast and they're going to have
Speaker 3: so much more food and you're just going to be
Speaker 3: sitting pretty basically. He actually started a Kudzu Club of America,
Speaker 3: which had eventually twenty thousand members and said this is
Speaker 3: the what's going to bring the South back basically is
Speaker 3: kudzoo And about oh what less than twenty years later, oh,
Speaker 3: actually about ten years later, Southern farmers were like, we're
Speaker 3: in big trouble here because the cattle are eating this
Speaker 3: stuff and if they eat too much of those leaves,
Speaker 3: they're dying off because they're not matured yet.
Speaker 2: The vines are yeah, cattle, they're.
Speaker 4: Not mature cattle. They can't handle it.
Speaker 3: And if they try to cut it back or something,
Speaker 3: because it's you know, starting to invade other parts of
Speaker 3: their farm and like bail it up, like hey, like
Speaker 3: I don't think I don't know if we're getting through
Speaker 3: what a twisted mess this stuff is like it'll wrap
Speaker 3: itself around any machinery you have and just make a
Speaker 3: fool of modern machinery.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just I mean, if you aren't familiar, just look
Speaker 2: up kudzoo and abandoned houses or something like that, and
Speaker 2: it will. It will just immediately deliver the impression you
Speaker 2: need on what it can do and how much it
Speaker 2: can take over. And so you had a bunch of
Speaker 2: farmers in the fifties who'd planted this stuff on purpose,
Speaker 2: and stories are starting to come out like these guys
Speaker 2: like their farms are just being overrun, Like not only
Speaker 2: is it getting out of their fields, it's starting to
Speaker 2: climb up their house, the farmhouse, their tractor. If they
Speaker 2: leave it sitting for more than half an hour, it'll
Speaker 2: get eaten up by the kudzu. Like this is when
Speaker 2: the kudzu legend really started to take off. And again
Speaker 2: it was it was based in a very real fact
Speaker 2: that kudzu had gotten out of hand and everyone had
Speaker 2: a problem. But it also was the rural Southerners who
Speaker 2: were talking about this, so it was immediately spun into
Speaker 2: yarns left and right.
Speaker 3: Basically, Yeah, I mean, it would you know, if it
Speaker 3: got into the forest it would the timber industry was affected,
Speaker 3: so it was genuinely causing problems. And then starting in
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty three, over the next about forty ish years,
Speaker 3: the government just kind of one at a time started
Speaker 3: saying things about kudzu, Like initially in fifty three the
Speaker 3: USDA said, it's not an improved cover crop, and then
Speaker 3: nine years later in sixty two, the Soil Conservation Service said,
Speaker 3: you know what you can you don't even plant this
Speaker 3: stuff unless it's in a really remote location. Nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: comes along and they say, all right, we're gonna go
Speaker 3: ahead and call a weed a weed, and this is
Speaker 3: a weed. And then finally in ninety seven they said
Speaker 3: that's not even good enough. It is on the Federal
Speaker 3: noxious weed list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it joined the sorry likes of goats, roue, velvet, fingergrass,
Speaker 2: giant fogweed, bidenhair, creeper, turkey berry, turkey berry, tropical soda apple.
Speaker 2: That's just like three words strung together.
Speaker 4: That's actually delicious.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it, but it's a noxious weed as
Speaker 2: far as the USDA is concerned. With a little gin
Speaker 2: and ice, though it does sound pretty good. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: one of the big problems is not just that, like
Speaker 2: farmers were having trouble with this, Eventually they figured this out,
Speaker 2: they stopped planning it, they were able to kill it
Speaker 2: off after you know, some years of difficulty, and then
Speaker 2: it mainly got left to abandoned areas those railroad tracks
Speaker 2: along the edges of highways, like the forests along the
Speaker 2: edge of a highway. That's basically where kudzoo was left
Speaker 2: to just kind of go crazy. And that's not really
Speaker 2: great either, because during the last glacial maximum in North America,
Speaker 2: the ice sheets came down and stopped just above Georgia,
Speaker 2: just above Tennessee, just above the South, let's just call
Speaker 2: it that, and a lot of animals migrated southward and
Speaker 2: stopped where the ice sheets stopped and stayed after the
Speaker 2: ice sheet retreated, And as a result, the South has
Speaker 2: one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in North America, and
Speaker 2: when you add something like an invasive plant species, it
Speaker 2: affects all of that. So it actually is a big
Speaker 2: deal that kudzoo is so pernicious and so fast spreading,
Speaker 2: because it does affect that biodiversity and reduces it tremendously.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and you were talking about it being a
Speaker 3: nitrogen fixer, which is a good thing when you need
Speaker 3: your nitrogen fixed. The problem is is there was so
Speaker 3: much kudzoo, I think more acreage in the south than
Speaker 3: even soybeans, so more than any other legume which are
Speaker 3: the other nitrogen fixers. Is the point it can actually disrupt.
Speaker 3: It can fix so much nitrogen that can disrupt the
Speaker 3: normal nitrogen cycle because when excess nitrogen comes back into
Speaker 3: the atmosphere, it comes back as two things, nitric oxide
Speaker 3: and nitrogen dioxide, and these are pollutants. So if you
Speaker 3: have an abundance of kudzuo, eventually you're going to have
Speaker 3: an abundance of lung inflammation and asthma.
Speaker 4: It's just it's not good for the air.
Speaker 2: So I looked into that and I could find articles
Speaker 2: on one twenty ten study and they were all around
Speaker 2: the same time and no follow up whatsoever. And the
Speaker 2: most recent study I could find was from twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three and it said essentially the opposite that Japanese kudzu
Speaker 2: growing along roadways actually traps a lot of the car
Speaker 2: emissions on that road in its dense vegetation and prevents
Speaker 2: air pollution in some ways. So it's possible. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: possible the twenty ten study was right. It's possible that
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three study was right. They're not mutually exclusive necessarily,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I didn't see any follow up whatsoever on
Speaker 2: that twenty ten study. And herein we have one of
Speaker 2: the big problems with talking about kudzu. People just say
Speaker 2: stuff about it and no one says, are you sure
Speaker 2: about that? That doesn't sound quite right, or where'd you
Speaker 2: get that fact from? You know, like it's it's just
Speaker 2: that's how the South talks about kudzu because it's, in
Speaker 2: some really strange way, very proud that it has this strange,
Speaker 2: unique problem that nowhere else in the world has. So
Speaker 2: I don't think South really wants to know that kudzuo's
Speaker 2: not as big of a problem as it's man saying
Speaker 2: all these decades, you know, yeah, because.
Speaker 3: Then we wouldn't be able to walk around and talk
Speaker 3: about kudzu to people that could care less.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we wouldn't be able to wear those shirts
Speaker 2: that are dyed green from kudzu very proudly outside of
Speaker 2: the South at like family reunions, I may say, ask
Speaker 2: me about my kudzuo dyed shirt.
Speaker 4: Oh is that a thing?
Speaker 2: Not that part, but yes, the dyeing a shirt green
Speaker 2: with kudzu to kind of show your Southern bona fides.
Speaker 2: Never that was a thing. That's super nineties. They also
Speaker 2: sold one that was a horrible color orange. It was
Speaker 2: dyed with red Georgia clay. These are not things that
Speaker 2: anybody should have been wearing, but it kind of goes
Speaker 2: to show like these are the weird things that Southerners
Speaker 2: take some sort of pride in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and when I was a kid, I remember seeing
Speaker 3: the h and probably in some parts of Georgia they
Speaker 3: still have these shirts and bumper stickers.
Speaker 4: Lee surrendered, Robert E. Lee, Lee surrendered. I did not.
Speaker 2: I'm it's so not surprised.
Speaker 3: It never occurred to me as a kid. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: what what are they saying? Like there are they still
Speaker 3: fighting the Civil War? Like they didn't surrender.
Speaker 2: I saw a check once from a guy this is
Speaker 2: not a joke, and he wasn't. This wasn't ironic. His
Speaker 2: address said for the state, the occupied state of Georgia.
Speaker 2: This was in the twenty first century.
Speaker 4: Who's it occupied by the Yankees?
Speaker 2: Yankees? Yeah, the Union, the Federal government. Ah boy, I'm
Speaker 2: not kidding and now serious about it too.
Speaker 3: So a couple of other problems with kudzuo is money.
Speaker 3: Utility companies spend, literally, spend hundreds of millions of dollars
Speaker 3: annually hundreds of millions of bucks trying to keep kudzu
Speaker 3: from overtaking their utility systems. The Highway doesn't spend quite
Speaker 3: as much, but they spend millions of bucks trying to
Speaker 3: kill kudzu along the highway. And then there's the matter
Speaker 3: of the kudzoo bug, which is a stink bug. It's Japanese,
Speaker 3: first spotted here in two thousand and nine. They're good
Speaker 3: in one way because they they eat the kudzoo and
Speaker 3: they can kill a mature kudzoo stand in two or
Speaker 3: three years sometimes, but they are invasive. They are stink bugs,
Speaker 3: and they eat other things and they're stink bugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you can't really say stink bugs enough. They
Speaker 2: are stinky, and that oil will stain your clothes. And
Speaker 2: when it gets cold out, they like to go into
Speaker 2: the warmth of your house and sometimes they'll just stay
Speaker 2: even after it gets warm outside. Again, it's not something
Speaker 2: you want. And they're fairly new they showed up. They
Speaker 2: think one of them or some of them hitched a
Speaker 2: flight or hitched a ride on some flight back in
Speaker 2: the early two thousands. And they were first described in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine in the South. And at first
Speaker 2: people are like, this is awesome, They're gonna get rid
Speaker 2: of the kudzoo. And then somebody smelled one of them
Speaker 2: and was like, oh no, still again something else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see stink bugs around but our house, But
Speaker 3: I don't think they're kuds you bugs.
Speaker 2: These look like an overfed tick in a lot of voice,
Speaker 2: same color, same shape and size. Yeah, you could see
Speaker 2: very easily mistaking it for a huge tick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally a blood and gorge tick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are the worst.
Speaker 4: Should we take another break?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's all right.
Speaker 4: We'll take a break and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 4: about what Josh was talking about. Is kudzu overblown? Right
Speaker 4: after this?
Speaker 1: Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck.
Speaker 1: Want to learn a thing or two from Joshuck, It's
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, all right.
Speaker 3: All right, if you have or not from the South
Speaker 3: and you've like road trip to the South or something,
Speaker 3: and you've heard of kudzoo and you're driving along the
Speaker 3: interstate and you see the kudzoo that is just you know,
Speaker 3: swallowed up a billboard or a telephone line or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just think to yourself, the poor, poor South,
Speaker 2: What did it ever do to anybody?
Speaker 4: I know?
Speaker 3: But if you drive around, you might think, oh, my god,
Speaker 3: that stuff really is everywhere. One of the reasons you're
Speaker 3: seeing it a lot there is because it really thrives
Speaker 3: along interstates and stuff, these like big, wide open areas
Speaker 3: where they can get plenty of sun and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So it's not like because you're driving down the highway
Speaker 3: and you see a ton of you know, something eating
Speaker 3: up in exit sign that is just like that everywhere.
Speaker 3: And like you said, there's a lot of sort of
Speaker 3: hinky stats around how much kudzoo there actually is, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: For sure. I think in the nineties, very frequently cited
Speaker 2: it'sistic was that kudzu covered seven million acres of the South.
Speaker 2: That is an enormous amount of land. But I was
Speaker 2: reading a Smithsonian article by a naturalist named Bill Finch,
Speaker 2: and he said that it seems that those stats came
Speaker 2: from a Garden Club guide, a kudzu craft book, and
Speaker 2: a culinarian healing guide. Yeah, and we have it that like,
Speaker 2: just like with everything else with kudzu, the academic community
Speaker 2: cited that statistic without any incredulity at all, and that
Speaker 2: it just spread like kudsu essentially.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think more reasonable stats.
Speaker 3: The US Forest Service says that they they are about
Speaker 3: two hundred and twenty seven thousand acres of kudzu in
Speaker 3: the forest. That does not count roadsides and stuff, so
Speaker 3: it's certainly a lot more. But I do think that
Speaker 3: seven million was just one of those sort of errant
Speaker 3: stats that was thrown out and then copy pasted.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean these things are being discussed among people
Speaker 2: who are have like friends of their cousins friends have
Speaker 2: done some amazing stuff over and over again.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, like you said, one of the reasons why kudzu
Speaker 2: seems to be taking over everything is just where it grows.
Speaker 2: So I think, Chuck, that would be selection bias.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, if you just it's where you are, But
Speaker 2: if you were in the forest, you'd be like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is this is fine. I mean, eventually the kudzu
Speaker 2: would eat through a forest, I guess, because it's eating
Speaker 2: the outside part and killing off the trees and then
Speaker 2: it would need the next stand of trees to grow on.
Speaker 2: But I don't see anywhere that that's a huge problem.
Speaker 2: It seems that it's just not as big an issue
Speaker 2: as anybody says that it's really not a huge problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently in Alabama there's way more. If you're talking
Speaker 3: about invasive species, there's way more Chinese privet and uh oh,
Speaker 3: have you had a problem with that?
Speaker 2: Dude? Have you ever had a Chinese privet problem?
Speaker 3: I definitely haven't, but I'm now looking it up to
Speaker 3: see if I even recognize it.
Speaker 2: A lot of people just treat them like shrubs because
Speaker 2: they're just so prevalent, and it's they're not exactly bad looking,
Speaker 2: but if you don't want them there, they're a problem.
Speaker 2: They're hard to get rid of, and they're sturdy. They
Speaker 2: grow really thick.
Speaker 4: Interesting. I like the white flowers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I said, some people are just like whatever,
Speaker 2: I have this this like shrub that I didn't ask for.
Speaker 2: But now I'm just gonna keep yah.
Speaker 3: H Japanese honeysuckle is the other one in Alabama at
Speaker 3: least is like way way more.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: Honeysuckles three about three million acres Chinese privets about a
Speaker 3: million acres in kudzu in Alabama is only about sixty
Speaker 3: thousand acres in the forest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in the United States, I think you said
Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty seven thousand acres of forest land, right,
Speaker 2: but that's just counting the forest land. Yeah, so we
Speaker 2: don't really know how much kudzuo there is. But again
Speaker 2: that now the most recent scholarship. People actually looking into
Speaker 2: it or don't seem to be particularly worried about the
Speaker 2: whole thing. But if you have kudzu in your yard,
Speaker 2: there's actually some things that you can do to get
Speaker 2: rid of it if you want to get rid of it,
Speaker 2: and you probably do if it's anywhere near your yard,
Speaker 2: because it'll eventually become a problem if it's not already.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a kudzu issue at the Eastlake Garden
Speaker 3: that Emily operates. There's a's sort of an island of
Speaker 3: kudzu and it's almost like a swale, like a depression
Speaker 3: where there's like trees and shrubs and stuff, and the
Speaker 3: kadzu is only in there. And I think we have
Speaker 3: both decided that trying to eradicate it from there is
Speaker 3: like not even worth the time, but we're trying to
Speaker 3: keep it there and not let it creep. So so far,
Speaker 3: so good with that, kudzuo. But I have English ivy
Speaker 3: that I purposely grew along one of my yard fences,
Speaker 3: my privacy fence, and it looks great. It's like Wrigley
Speaker 3: Field out there, and I'm so proud of it. But
Speaker 3: it is stacking up so high on this fence. I
Speaker 3: know that's not good for the fence because it's been
Speaker 3: you know, I used to manage it a lot better
Speaker 3: now it's been a couple of years.
Speaker 4: And it's also a mosquito haven, I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it locks in moisture in that you know
Speaker 2: behind it, which is where the fence is. So if
Speaker 2: it's a wood fence, it'll live bit yeah, rot it faster,
Speaker 2: Yeah it can. Also it can also take over trees too.
Speaker 2: English ivy can be a problem in the South as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You cut those at the bottom of the tree and
Speaker 3: watch them die.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So's there's an extra step that I've found. I
Speaker 2: don't know the vines that I was dealing with, but
Speaker 2: they are serious vines and they're hard to get rid of.
Speaker 2: But I have found one of the methods of killing
Speaker 2: kudzoo also works for say like ivy or these vines
Speaker 2: that I'm working with, which is you cut the thing off,
Speaker 2: like you find a thick like part of the kudzou
Speaker 2: vine nice and mature, cut it off very close to
Speaker 2: the ground, and then you paint it with the herbicide,
Speaker 2: like using one of those cheap wooden disposable brushes.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the herbicide I've found works really well is Crossbow.
Speaker 2: It's a Southern egg product, and you just paint it on,
Speaker 2: let it dry, paint on another coat, let it dry,
Speaker 2: maybe do three times. It will it will work. It
Speaker 2: will kill that that vine or that weed or whatever
Speaker 2: it is you're trying to kill pretty quick and it's
Speaker 2: not going to come back. I did last time I
Speaker 2: painted on crossbow in the woods behind my yard. It
Speaker 2: was probably two three years ago, and the stuff that
Speaker 2: I killed is not grown back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it does it.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you can tell this or not.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of proud of that one.
Speaker 4: You should be. You killed it.
Speaker 2: I killed it dead and then I ate its babies.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: By the way, if you want to, Emily started an
Speaker 3: Instagram page for that garden that I've mentioned before. It
Speaker 3: is East Underscore Lake Underscore Garden. You want to learn
Speaker 3: a little bit more about the story of her cultivating
Speaker 3: and sponsorship of this nice little piece of land right
Speaker 3: here in the middle of town.
Speaker 2: Very nice.
Speaker 3: But if you want to keep talking talking about killing
Speaker 3: kadso you know, I'll get her to put a picture
Speaker 3: of the kudzoo up.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, you definitely should.
Speaker 3: But one thing you can do if it's on the ground,
Speaker 3: if it's not growing up things yet, is you can
Speaker 3: just mow the heck out of it. Because you know,
Speaker 3: like the cow's eating those leaves could kill a not
Speaker 3: quite mature vine. If you cut those leaves off, it's
Speaker 3: eventually going to die. If it's like super super mature,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be a lot harder. But you just got
Speaker 3: to keep getting in there and keep mowing low and
Speaker 3: just mowing it down and maybe it'll take a year
Speaker 3: or two, but that will also take care of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. You can also dig up the roots,
Speaker 2: remember those root crowns that grow. Yeah, it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a pain, but luckily you just need to dig up
Speaker 2: the root crowns which are fairly shallow. You can leave
Speaker 2: those giant four hundred pound tubers behind because they're an
Speaker 2: energy store. They're not necessarily what it's growing from. So
Speaker 2: if you get rid of the crowns, that tuber will
Speaker 2: eventually die off too. And it's a pretty good way
Speaker 2: from what I can tell. It's a very effective way
Speaker 2: to get rid of your kudzu immediately is digging up
Speaker 2: the root crowns if you are dedicated and digging them
Speaker 2: all up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or if you want to really go the next level,
Speaker 3: dig up that route and use that thing you can.
Speaker 2: I don't know why this bothers me, but I find
Speaker 2: this really bothers them for some reason.
Speaker 4: That people would use this plant for good things.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I guess so in the South in particular.
Speaker 4: Oh do you I mean, is there any reason behind
Speaker 4: it or.
Speaker 2: Do you know? Like I said, I can't put my
Speaker 2: finger on it. It's something about it bothers me. It's
Speaker 2: I just don't understand why. But the idea of chefs
Speaker 2: like employing kudzu and Southern you know, new Southern cuisine
Speaker 2: thinking crafts out of kudzu. I don't know why, but
Speaker 2: I just it bothers me. And it doesn't matter like
Speaker 2: go ahead and do whatever you want. But me personally,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna think about it and maybe one of these
Speaker 2: days I'll figure it out. But it bothers me.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, I love it. I think it's great.
Speaker 3: I think if that stuff is there, like sort of
Speaker 3: with a foraging that's so popular these days, just going
Speaker 3: out and using what's in the earth to put on
Speaker 3: your plate. I think it's a great thing. And there
Speaker 3: are Southern chefs getting into that. Like you mentioned, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, like you said, weird pride
Speaker 3: around it. There have been poems written about kudzu by
Speaker 3: very prominent poets. It's been you know, mentioned in countless.
Speaker 4: Books and movies.
Speaker 3: It was if you're a we have to mention the
Speaker 3: ram Murmur album cover.
Speaker 4: If you're a music.
Speaker 3: Fan and you're from this South, you're probably super into
Speaker 3: the fact that the Murmur album cover is one of
Speaker 3: those train trestles completely eaten up by kudzoo. And the
Speaker 3: fun little story about that is is that thing had
Speaker 3: gotten so you know, sort of rotted out. I guess
Speaker 3: after years and years of the kudzoo eating it. It
Speaker 3: was try to be saved. A bunch of times. There
Speaker 3: were efforts over the years. Finally in twenty twenty they
Speaker 3: were like, and this is, you know, outside of Athens.
Speaker 4: They said, we're gonna have to take this thing down.
Speaker 4: So they did.
Speaker 3: But cherry on top of this story or I guess
Speaker 3: silver lining rather. It is now part of the Firefly Trail,
Speaker 3: a very popular outdoor hiking and walking trail, and they
Speaker 3: built a replica of the train trestle that you can
Speaker 3: now walk over as a bridge that opened just last
Speaker 3: year in twenty twenty three, So it's back again.
Speaker 2: Great, but the Kudzuo's gone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not covering Kutsy though.
Speaker 3: But people make you know their pilgrimage, the part insider
Speaker 3: joke to look and get their picture taken or in
Speaker 3: the South you'll get your picture made where that train
Speaker 3: trestle is.
Speaker 2: And then what was while you're there, you also want
Speaker 2: to go to what was the soul food restaurant that
Speaker 2: just said automatic for the people was like their slogan.
Speaker 3: We were D's right behind there for a year, so good,
Speaker 3: yeah go there, go to Weaver D's and then the
Speaker 3: church steeple where Arim played their very first show. They
Speaker 3: tore down the church, but they left that steeple is
Speaker 3: now a historical monument.
Speaker 2: Yep if you open it up, you let out the
Speaker 2: people too, right, that's true. I feel like we need
Speaker 2: to close with a poem as we normally do close
Speaker 2: stuff you should know episodes.
Speaker 4: Hey, please read it.
Speaker 2: This is a poem by James Dickey, who was a
Speaker 2: poet but also a novelist. He wrote Deliverance right and
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty three this poem was published in the
Speaker 2: New Yorker. It's called Kudzu. Japan invades far Eastern vines
Speaker 2: run from the clay banks. They are supposed to keep
Speaker 2: from eroding up telephone poles, which rear half out of leafage,
Speaker 2: as though they would shriek like things smother by their
Speaker 2: own green, mindless, unkillable ghosts. But in Georgia, the legend
Speaker 2: says that you must close your windows that night. You
Speaker 2: can keep it out of the house. Okay, dot dot dot.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's a good poem and I read it like amazingly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we should get Jerry dads some like, you know,
Speaker 4: like a stand up base.
Speaker 2: And yeah like this when I finished. But yeah, okay, uh,
Speaker 2: maybe Jerry will let's find.
Speaker 4: Out or maybe that she can just sample me doing
Speaker 4: that and just loop it.
Speaker 2: There you go. That's a great idea. That's an even
Speaker 2: better idea. All right, Uh, well, we are done with
Speaker 2: Kudzu right right. That means it's time for listener meal.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call this Brooklyn nine nine follow up. Hey guys,
Speaker 3: I was listening to the Tom Slick episode and you
Speaker 3: guys were talking about Andy Samberg and tangentially Adam Sandler,
Speaker 3: and Josh said that he had never been or maybe
Speaker 3: it was me, actually you said he had never been
Speaker 3: in Brooklyn nine nine as far as I was aware. Actually,
Speaker 3: he had a cameo in one episode that was quite funny,
Speaker 3: and I've included a link to enjoy.
Speaker 4: Which I'm gonna watch.
Speaker 3: I also want to say thanks for the insane amount
Speaker 3: of entertainment and education you guys have brought to the world.
Speaker 3: Have been listening for a few years and love learning
Speaker 3: while being entertained. And you guys have the perfect combination
Speaker 3: for back and forth style. Always feels like normal conversation
Speaker 3: with friends because it is random, unrelated information and asides included.
Speaker 4: And that is from Victor And I'm gonna check out
Speaker 4: that clip.
Speaker 3: You can go on YouTube and probably just type in
Speaker 3: Adam Sandler Brooklyn nine nine if you want to see
Speaker 3: the clip.
Speaker 2: Very nice. Thanks a lot, Victor, much appreciated. Thanks for
Speaker 2: the link and for all the kind words. And if
Speaker 2: you want to be like Victor and get in touch
Speaker 2: with this, you can send us an email too. Send
Speaker 2: it to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio up
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm